Ghana Trip Journal: Day 3

Today was quite the adventure! We were on the road by 7am with Mark (and a driver provided by Esi along with their family car) to head to Cape Coast. As we started the 2 hour drive I found myself glued to the window (again) taking in the sights. About every 3 miles there were villages of houses either made of scrap metal, sticks, some sort of concrete/stucco, or huts with walls made of sugarcane and grass tops. Each house was about 10 feet by 10 feet. I tried to take pictures from inside the car while we drove, but most of them turned out blurry except for this one:
Within the villages I saw a lot of children running around, and women doing laundry in wash bins. In Ghana there is a lot of trash and litter everywhere because it is so populated and there is no good sanitation system. In the villages there are goats, chickens, and dogs that roam around and pick through the trash that lays in piles. In the villages there is also a line of small selling stands set up in front of the housing area, and then all of the houses are behind the stands. There also continued to be numerous people selling items on the sides of the road. During the two hour drive there was really no area that I would consider ‘country’….every inch of road was covered with people walking, selling, working, etc.

Eventually we made it to Cape Coast and the first thing Mark wanted to show us was the Cape Coast Castle. This castle & dungeon was where slaves were imprisoned and tortured before they were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to North and South America as part of the slave trade. Let me tell you, it felt absolutely dreadful walking through this castle. As we stepped foot into a cell, I all of a sudden felt this heaviness and deep, erie feeling. I’ve never felt anything like it. It just felt heavy. There is this spiritual feeling in this place that makes it very clear to your soul that awful, horrible, unimaginable things happened here.

This is the outside of the castle. There was a church service going on there below while we were there.

Walking in.

Looking inside a cell.

Looking out to the Atlantic from the top of the castle.

The inside of the Castle has now been turned into a museum in which you can read about the conditions slaves endured while on the ships as they were shipped across the Atlantic.

So, this was a pretty solemn way to start the day, but I was glad that Mark took us there. Mark has been really good about trying to explain and inform us of the history and culture of his beloved country. And there is a lot of history in that castle.

So, you’ve seen now that Cape Coast sits right on the ocean. Because of this it is a big fishing community. Enjoy these pictures that I took atop of the Castle:

Spreading out the fishing nets.

The coast line.

Now I can also finally give you a good picture of the housing in Ghana:

I also took this picture from the top of the Castle. These houses are fully functional…this is where people live. This type of housing is very, very, very common in Ghana. Everywhere you look you will see houses like this. Often times there is food brewing in big pots right outside the front door, and laundry hanging on the line or draped over the edge of the house. The women and children go in and out of the housing area all day long.

After visiting the castle we took a quick walk down to the beach, and the view was breathtaking:

By now you might be noticing that many of our pictures have this sort of hazy look to them. It’s actually not my camera. Mark explained to us that at this time of year dust and sand blows in from the Sahara Desert, and it sort of coats the sky and the air. There is a certain name for it, but I can’t remember what it is called. This also explained why during our time in Ghana it felt like the sun was so far away. On this day in Cape Coast there were barely any clouds in the sky, and yet the sun felt distant and not very strong. We were outside the entire day and didn’t even catch a burn!

After our sight-seeing, it was time to get down to business and pay a visit to Hoops Care International, which was our reason for visiting Cape Coast. Hoops Care has a good basketball program up and running, and Jake and Mark wanted to tour it to see how things were run. They had also asked Jake to put on about an hour camp while we were there.

This kid was really good!

I kid you not, within about 5 minutes of Jake's camp starting, village people started crowding around to watch. They literally stopped whatever it was they were doing and came and watched the camp.

Lots of onlookers!

In this last picture you may have noticed the girl in front posing. Well, a bunch of the village children noticed me taking pictures and they begged me to take each of their pictures so that they could then look at their photo on the viewer screen. These kids were so funny! They didn’t speak English, but we still had fun!

Once they saw their picture they would point and giggle and laugh. Then, just when I thought they were done posing they would hold up their pointer finger and beg….’Un Moey!’ (one more!)

Aw, they were so cute!

Jake ended the camp with an awesome speech that I so wish I would have videotaped.

And, we had to get a group picture before we left....can you spot us? :)

After our time in Cape Coast we continued to drive about two more hours into the western region to the town of Takoradi. It was here that we met up with the banker who is handling the buying and selling of the land Jake is interested in for his academy. First, the banker took us to meet the chief who owns the land. This was the craziest part of the entire day, maybe even the craziest thing I’ve ever been a part of in my life. :) We actually went to the chief’s house which was in a village in Takoradi. We sat down on some massive couches and waited for the chief to come out of the other room. When he came in to meet us, he fulfilled every picture in my mind of what I thought an African chief would be. He was a big guy, wearing a traditional African outfit with some very flashy silver flip-flops. He had a booming voice and at first he wouldn’t speak English with us (we were told later that he wanted to know he could trust us first) so Mark and the banker had to translate everything. Well, of course Jake knew just what to say and how to say it (he always does no matter what situation he finds himself in) and for whatever reason, we were told that the chief liked Jake and he loved his plans for the land. After some conversation (in English finally) the chief took us out to the land so we could view it! I was so excited, and boy was I in for a surprise! The land literally sits about a ¼ of a mile from the ocean shore. It is beautiful. I could totally picture the entire facility right on the land.

Here is the main chunk. Right over those palm trees to the left is the ocean!

Just beautiful!

Jake and the chief chat it up!

So, the chief told us that he had a few other people interested in purchasing this land but he has turned them down. Oil was just discovered right off the ocean from the land, so the chief has been very picky about who he gives the land to.

Oil rig right off the land.

When oil was recently discovered in Nigeria, things became very corrupt and there has been lots of fighting about land rights, etc. It’s kind of a long story and Jake could give you more details if you ask him about it. The main point is that the chief has been very protective of this land. The clincher for the chief to allow us to purchase the land was because of Jake’s plans for education in building the school. Apparently there is no school in this area of Takoradi where the chief lives, so it would be a great asset to the area. Also, one thing to note about chiefs of villages – they are not ‘rich’. We learned from Mark that chiefs are traditional rulers who strictly ensure that Ghanaian culture is maintained amongst the villages. Chiefs also manage land handed down to them from their family. This management has no dealings with the government. Meeting with the chief was the most interesting experience I have ever had, and I will not soon forget it!

So, this turned out to be quite the jam-packed day. After we said our goodbyes to the chief we grabbed some dinner (chicken and jollof rice) and then began our trek back to the hotel – about a 4 hour drive. Once we got back Jake pumped up the basketballs that he would hand out tomorrow, and I wrote in my journal. Then we crashed, excited for what the next day would bring!